B.Yanka Stigter’s recent documentary Three Minutes: Extended is based on a short home movie shot by an American tourist in the Polish town of Nasiersk in 1938. The same section of film is shown over and over again, accompanied by commentary and testimony, slowed down, zoomed in, and freeze-framed. But these everyday images of Jewish life are very poignant. Because we know that almost everyone on screen will be caught in the Holocaust and killed.
Something of the same spirit permeates Philip Hui’s impressive essay-length book M. Degas comes outWhen he went to an exhibition on Edgar Degas in 2011, he was “totally mesmerized” by a nine-second film clip of the old painter walking through the streets of Paris. So he downloaded it to his computer, slowed it down and split it into 250 stills of him. 42 of them are included here. Just before the screen dims, a passing young woman turns to us and says, “We realize how beautiful she is” and she “shines positively.” [the camera]and in doing so beams upon us as well” – and “completely nullifies the 100+ years that separated us”.
By thoroughly analyzing this little sequence, Hoy shows how it reflects a tragic turning point in French life. Early in World War I, actor and playwright Sacha Guitry put together a short propaganda film that showcased key figures in French culture. Friends such as Sarah Bernhardt and Claude Monet were happy to act for the camera, but when Degas curtly rejected his approach, Guitry was forced to film him in secret.
Hoy suggests that when you find yourself looking at wartime Paris, you begin to notice the absence. The city is “feminized”, with more women than men out there. Soldiers and he is the only man who appears to be of military age. And with most vehicles requisitioned by the military, the once-busy streets are now deserted.
But what about the unknown who was glimpsed for a moment and lost forever? Was this soldier one of a small minority stationed in Paris, or was he given a short leave of absence, and was he among the 1.4 million French who died in the war? Are the four women in full-length costumes entertainers, Hoy wonders, or, according to one historian, the city’s 6,000 people returning home from the ‘Lee Brand’ near Gare du Nord station? are some of the registered sex workers in Explosion of outdoor sex”? Why is the young man yawning scooter Or no delivery tricycle at reception? And what, if anything, can we read from a fleeting glance?
He has apparently read extensively on the social history of Paris, and though he admits that many of his essays amount to “vain speculation”, he certainly weaves a fascinating tapestry around it.
